Documentation Department

The Documentation Department of the museum was founded in 1985, since when it has vigorously and systematically centralised the processing of documentation about the museum material. The foundations of the department were laid by director Vladimir Tkalčić in the 1930s, setting up the archives of photographic negatives of museum objects and artworks registered outside the museum. With time the archives were enlarged, not only in number, but also in the kind of medium, and today there are also slide holdings as well as a collection of photographs. The video holdings include documentary films and television stories covering the museum and its activities. The press clippings section and the exhibitions documentation section started systematically working in the 1950s. The press clippings collection consists of a collection of newspaper stories from the dailies and weeklies, systematised and processed, concerning the work of the museum. The documentation about exhibitions covers all the exhibitions organised by the museum, held in the Museum of Arts and Crafts premises or elsewhere, and exhibitions the museum hosts. All these collections are processed manually and digitally, are searchable and open to the public.

Computerisation of the museum started in 1989 when an information specialist was employed, the first computers were acquired and the institution was included in MUGIS – the museum-gallery information system. In 1998 the Museum transferred to the ProMUS computer system for the processing of museum material, the system it is still using.

Documentation Department today consists of a records and an information section, as well as a photographic studio. A documentalist, a museum technician, an information technology expert and two photographers work in the Department.